“We call it a mash-up opera, but it’s really a mix-tape opera,” says stage director Patrick Eakin Young, one of two co-directors of Opera Erratica (the other is conductor Ashiq Aziz). “It was put together as an iTunes playlist.” The company also calls it a “video cabaret opera,” playing on Schoenberg’s many ironic riffs, in Pierrot, on the Germanic cabaret tradition.
Young and Aziz got the idea for the piece after Aziz attended performances of the two works during a visit to London. He was struck by a few thematic similarities, including Orlando’s bout of madness, and figured that a new piece fashioned from two old ones might be a good next project for a small company determined to give opera a fresh appearance (the company’s last outing was a video-heavy production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas last summer).
via An operatic mix-tape turns two old things into a new one – The Globe and Mail.
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